Shrinking Trade Deficit Boosts
Current Account in Philippines

By

Rita Raagas Dow Jones Newswires

Updated June 19, 1998 12:01 a.m. ET

MANILA, Philippines -- Benefiting from a continued narrowing in its trade deficit, the Philippines posted a current-account surplus of $131 million for the first two months of 1998, a turnaround from the $457 million deficit registered in the year-earlier period.

The government had projected a $241 million deficit under a two-year precautionary borrowing program with the International Monetary Fund that has given the Philippines...